The Reality of War
by Killerkitty641
Summary: A collection of short stories and one-shots about the war away from the flashy swords and heroic characters, one which is focused more on the small things that occurred in the Galactic Civil War. About the beings who fought and perished both on battlefields and in the homes of the galaxy - their tales and commentary on events, from a different perspective to what we are shown.
1. Reality of War

Reality of War

* * *

The Imperial waded through the sludge, thigh-high water soaking into his bodysuit. The torrential rains splattered down without remorse, greying out the entire landscape. Trees sagged in the loose soil, lower branches dangling down into the river and further obstructing his view.

At least it was warm, he reflected as he stepped over some submerged log that was invisible amongst the murky water and drenched plants, having caught his foot on it moments before. Cold water played havoc with his rifle, sometimes freezing to the metal and jamming the moving parts. Not to mention the effect it had on his body. It was his own fault for picking the bodysuit that wasn't environmentally sealed, even though it gave him much greater mobility.

He hitched his rifle in one arm, using the other to lift a branch from where it overhung and blocked his path, setting it back down gently, as so not to damage the wood and leave a trace of his presence. The water swirled around him, gently tugging at his armour like an ethereal entity asking for his presence.

The scout glanced up, noticing a strangely straight shape in a world of curves, the inorganic material barely discernible from the overgrowth in the limited light.

He tapped the side of his helmet, and the image jumped forward, once, twice.

A third time was enough for him to make out the jagged, torn metal that once was part of one of the S-foils for a rebel X-Wing. The blaster pointed groundwards, hanging on to the rest of the craft by a thin sliver of titanium alloy. A flash of lightning overwhelmed the sensitive helmet sensors, which polarised and depolarised as quickly as it could, which wasn't very quickly at all.

So much for 'state of the art', he grumbled to himself as he climbed out of the river, the banks slippery with muck. The normally white armour got an extra coating of mud as he slipped, cursing himself for letting himself be distracted by his thoughts. At least his E-11s, the soldier-proof sniper

universally used by the scout forces, would be fine. It'd held up through all the wading and clambering through the jungle so far, and he'd managed to keep it held up during his embarrassing tumble.

He got into a crouch, scanning the wreck again, boots squelching slightly as he adjusted his position to settle a knee on the ground.

The X-wing had been shot-down, from what he could tell by the damage visible in the accursed rain. One of its 4L4 fusial thrust engines had been blown off, a gaping hole where it was supposed to have been attached, a small pool of water accumulated inside. The S-foil it'd been attached to was gone, most likely detached during the battle and lost to the green swathes of the jungle.

He rose slowly, just enough so that he could carefully swing his rifle around his shoulder, blending in with the surroundings as best as he could, which meant no sudden, rapid movements, movements that would draw the eye of anyone observant enough to catch it amid the shower of water.

His weapon safely back, his hand reached down and clicked the cap off the holster, allowing him to reach in and ever so gently wrap his hand around the EC-17 hold-out blaster, colloquially known as the 'scout trooper blaster pistol' throughout both the Imperial and rebel forces, although how it obtained such a long reference name (instead of calling it the EC-17) eluded him.

The pressure-sensitive grip fitted snugly into his hand, and he eased it out, eyes scanning the treeline for movement. It would be pointless to try the thermal sensors in his visor, with some 90% of the location being alive in some shape or form it would create a single red blur, a collective mass of all the heat signatures within visual range. Neither would the energy emission detection be of any use right now; if he were to be ambushed, the flash it would give him would serve no benefit in saving his life. The only thing of use for this mission so far had been the night vision, and that was of dubious benefit, considering the state of repair it'd been in. They weren't supposed to take a second to polarise from a lightning strike, let alone even try to polarise and unpolarise because of a lightning strike.

He sighed internally. That was what happened when you were garrisoned on some backwater planet. It was decades behind on the restock list, so the equipment, if not all that old, lacked the supplies to maintain complete combat efficiency. So, this meant he was unable to take more than the limited equipment he currently had. He didn't even have any N-20 Baradium-core thermal detonators, smoke grenades, recon drones, or camouflage tent. His equipment was composed of his rifle, blaster pistol, a grappling hook, three sets of rations, a water purification tablet, and a single flare.

The scout dragged his mind from the logistical situation his garrison faced and performed a perfunctory sweep of the dense thicket, again not seeing anything unusual.

He tentatively stepped forward, blaster pointing up close to his chest, where he could drop it down and start shooting the instant something happened.

But nothing did, and he trudged to the side of the craft without incident. Rain hammered onto his helmet through the clearing created by the crash, and a quick glance up revealed the desolate skies, rolling with black clouds.

He searched the wreckage before him with an experienced eye. The cockpit was completely shattered, glass hanging off the edges, partially melted and bent outwards, as though something had smashed through the screen upon impact, the cockpit gutted by a long-extinguished fire. Climbing onto the hull, the scout saw the fried controls, panels worn away and exposed by the natural processes of the jungle as well as the impact. The tattered remnants of the seat sagged downwards, being the first thing to have eroded, but what residual material still hung around looked like char-grilled… he didn't even know, but meshed in with it was what used to be orange fabric, probably the pilot's flight suit.

'Not a nice way to go', was his assessment, performing one last scan of the cockpit for anything his roving eyes could've missed.

There. A small, fireproof container stashed underneath the seat. Rebellion protocol dictated that they were supposed to contain only emergency supplies, but it was a well-known habit of rebel pilots to put extra food, surplus equipment, and personal mementos in them as well, so he snapped the lock open, lifting the lid to reveal what was inside.

A flare was the first thing that he saw, his reconnaissance training letting him pick out the survival equipment instantly, then a pair of the much-desired rebel ready-meals (which tended to be of far better quality than the bland nutrient paste the Empire supplied them with), a basic survival multitool, a signal light, an all-weather sleeping bag (again a treasured loot item by Scout troopers) and a small photograph.

He lifted the photograph out first, examining the people pictured. It showed a smiling woman carrying a young boy on her shoulders. Behind them, an idyllic rural landscape streatched out like something from a holiday brochure, the sun shining down on the green grass.

He flipped it over, the now soggy material beginning to come apart in the rough gloves on his hands.

Rosetta and Damietta, it read. I failed to protect you from the evils of the Empire. I swear this will not happen to another if I can help it.

\- V

So, the pilot lost his family and turned against the Empire. The same sob-story the rebels used time-and-again when justifying their terrorism. Some poor farmer wanting to live his life peacefully had said life destroyed by the bullying, xenophobic Imperials, and they all had to rise up to destroy the 'evil' so it didn't happen to anyone else.

He snorted as he gently laid the picture on the seat, turning back to rummage through the box a bit more.

It may have been a shame that something had happened to someone, but the rebels had no clue what the Empire really stood for. They were mere dissidents who couldn't see the good the Empire had brought, blinded by a few bad experiences, forgetting that it was the republic they were fighting to restore that had let Grakkul the Hutt set up fighting pits on Nar Shadda, and ignored the piracy and slavery of the Zygarrans. If the Empire hadn't come along, millions of people now free would be living a life in servitude, or even as fodder for wild beasts in arenas as entertainment for crime-lords.

He knew there were issues with the Empire, of that there was no doubt. The individuality of the Scout trooper units allowed them to be more than just blind followers, although in fairness he hadn't encountered many Imperials who were. There were corrupt officials who skimmed money from planetary budgets, Stormtroopers who used their status as agents of the Empire to take advantage of others, and the pervading anti-alien stigma against Xenos in their ranks.

He moved on autopilot, searching and grabbing things he thought were necessary, and a few that weren't, as he thought. He found a radio and briefly checked it, then tossed the useless thing aside.

Their republic could never carry out swift justice on those who would seek to undermine the system, could never execute a governor for hoarding money intended to go to the impoverished or sentence someone to imprisonment for abusing their powers. Their senate was rife with corruption, the underworlds flourishing as ambassadors lined their pockets through blackmail and shady dealings. Coruscant, during the worst decades of the Republic, had hundreds of thousands of homicides in a single day, once with over 5000 in an hour. He'd done his research, not through the official Imperial records, but older ones stored on various other planets, ones that the Empire had left untouched. They told the truth, should anyone be willing to listen.

Okay, he breathed as he patted his armour, checking that the pockets were securely shut and that nothing would fall out as he moved

He hopped down from the warped, rusted hull and landed in the muck with a loud squelch, mud splashing to the sides of the white boots.

A glance to one side revealed a small, burnished-white flight helmet embedded in the tree, grabbing the Scout's attention. He walked over slowly, the rain drumming its rhythmic beat on his light-weight plastasteel armour, until he halted by the tree, examining the helmet and the moss-infested tree which it'd buried itself in.

A gentle tug pulled it free, and her turned it around so that he was looking into where the pilot's face would've been, brushing some bark off the top. A small, faded purple ghost-cat was emblazoned on the left, a trio of TIE-fighters and a lone TIE-Striker painted in solid black on the left. The auberish inscriptions designated him as a wing-leader in the 23rd Martathan liberation squadron. The very same squadron that was wiped out here, aiding another cell in the earliest days of the rebellion.

The scout turned and made his way back, tossing the helmet into the cockpit, to rest on the seat with the photograph of his family. The Imperial briefly wondered if the rebel had ever considered the fact that those pilots might've had families as well, before dismissing the thought and re-holstering his pistol.

He ran through his equipment again as he made his way back to the banks of the river he'd been wading through earlier, unslinging the rifle from his shoulder.

In the belt pockets he had two flares, one Imperial and one rebel, five ration packs, two rebel MREs and 3 Imperial nutrient paste packets with much more elaborate names than the ones he'd given them, the signal light, a smoke grenade wrapped within the sleeping bag, and a couple of spare blaster charges. Why the rebel had magazines for his E-11s, he'd never know, because only the E-11s fired rounds of that calibre. No pistol was capable of doing so, and rifles were too big to fit in the fighter.

The multitool was attached to his belt, along with a laser pointer buried right at the bottom of the box. In a moment of unprofessional weakness, he'd tied the sleeping bag to the back of the belt where the thermal detonator would've been, if he'd had one.

Whoever that rebel had been, he was woefully unprepared for survival; his survival crate lacked purification tablets, water, insect repellent, and any kind of medical supplies whatsoever.

He slipped back into the water with a supressed sigh, feeling it soak his armour again and wipe away what little camouflage his slip in the mud had afforded him. The murky water rippled as he moved forward, rifle pointing ahead of him at all times. A quagmire stretched before him, and he continued his trip, slowly scanning the area in front of him as he moved.

He took his left hand off the foregrip and brought it up so he could activate his commlink to command, who were, for a backwater planet, surprisingly efficient. He never got around to asking if any of them had served in a military force before, because what they knew surpassed the standard training they were given.

"TAC-COM one," he said softly, keeping his rifle raised with just the one hand, silently wading through the darkness. "This is Ghost reporting a downed X-wing fighter at…" he glanced at his tactical map and did a quick calculation. "Operation sector eighteen-G, grid square five-five-one-seven-six."

"Copy Ghost," the female voice answered immediately. "Did you get the model and squadron?"

"Yeah. It was a standard T-sixty five, part of the twenty third Martathan liberation squadron. No body was found of the pilot, but a quick search revealed orange flight suit melted into the seat," he rotated his head slowly, checking his flanks, then behind him. Nothing.

"Thanks for the update Ghost," the voice came back seconds later. "Keep me posted."

"Copy command," he lowered his arm back to its original position, the connection snapping off as he did so, ending their transmission.

If this was a normal operation, he'd be Ghost One or Ghost Two, depending on whether it was him or another scout leading the mission. But of course, one of them had to get a stomach bug the day before not one, but two missions popped up. With only the four scouts at the entire garrison, one of whom out of action for a week, meant that someone had to go on a mission solo, and of course, he was the one who drew the short straw.

Not officially of course. The commander gave a convoluted explanation as to why he was going it alone, most of which ran along the lines of 'you're the highest-ranking scout' and' you're the best we've got'. He called bullshit on that second one, but held his peace in front of the boss.

It wasn't as though he was going completely alone though. He was supposed to provide overwatch for some Stormtroopers and local militia. They weren't even expected to find anything, which was why the other, larger force had been sent to the second location.

He stopped suddenly, faced with an embankment that wasn't on his map. If his global positioning system was correct, then he shouldn't have met this for another hour, so why was it there in front of him?

Grumbling, the Imperial ordered his system to refresh, and sighed when it jumped a couple of miles south to his current position.

At least I made good time, he thought, slinging his rifle over his shoulder again and crouching, letting the water flow up to his neck, soaking through the bodysuit and lapping around the now-gleaming white armour. What a beautiful target I make too.

Now for the moment of truth. He activated his respirator and lay down under the water.

Breath in. Hiss. Breath out. Hiss.

It sounded like the scuba gear he'd used during training, but lacking the heavy external tanks and rebreathers required to function in deep water without risk of suffering from nitrogen narcosis when ascending again.

The scout crawled forward, letting the weight of the soaked bodysuit drag him down slightly. Gloved fingers clawed at the mud, grabbing onto tree roots to propel himself along.

What he was actually doing was going through a tunnel underneath the embankment, one that was only visible when it hadn't rained for a long time, and there wasn't much water in the river. Most of the time though, it was submerged, and today the river was even more swollen than normal.

He couldn't see anything past a few inches, his hands disappearing into the darkness, then reappearing as he pulled himself along. He couldn't turn on his powerful spotlight either, due to the need for concealment. It would've only lit up an extra foot or so, and for now he was fine without.

Hiss. Breathe in. Hiss. Breathe out.

It was somewhat surreal. His senses limited to inches of swirling, murky water, what he could feel with his hands, and the sound of his breathing. Nothing else, and his eyes darted around, searching for something to focus on, to no avail.

Breathe in. Hiss. Breathe out. Hiss.

His hands scraped against the side of the channel, and he shifted ever so slightly, adjusting his direction to follow the river. His rifle was, fortunately, close enough to his shoulder that it didn't catch on the roof of the tunnel.

Breathe in. Hiss. Breathe out. Hiss.

When he'd judged he'd gone far enough, he halted and waited, listening and watching. After a few seconds, he raised his head, just a tad. When there was no reaction, a little bit more, then some more, until his eyes were above water-level, probing the surrounding vegetation for signs of life.

No, life was the wrong word. Signs of the enemy. Signs of an ambush. That's what he was looking for. Life was everywhere in the jungle. Rebels weren't.

He eased himself up, deactivating his respirator and unslinging his rifle, standing in the shallower water, only up to his knees, as he looked around. The scout was like some ethereal spirit, rising from the water onto the right-side embankment in his nigh-fluorescent white armour, something which the scout roundly cursed the design teams for in equal measure with whichever airhead thought it would be a good idea to have all Imperial forces wear such an unhelpful colour.

Still nothing moved, apart from the water lapping around his legs and flowing off to the left, trying to drag him with it.

It was time to part ways with the river, which flowed downhill at an increasingly fast rate as it led to a waterfall, largest in the entire quadrant, falling several hundred meters down into a sinkhole, complete with small lake at the bottom. If he had been the rebels, he'd have set up camp there, with a source of water and plenty of caves to hide in should they be found.

He bent over to grab a handful of mud, slapping it onto his chest plate and shoulder pads in an attempt to make them blend in at least a little, then pacing onwards, rifle ready but not pointing up as he went to his next checkpoint. Just a few hundred meters in this direction would take him the rendezvous with part of the strike force.

The rain had slackened off a little, which was a mixed blessing. He could see better and could hear better, but so could the enemy, and everyone's blasters would be more accurate without the rain disrupting the bolts.

There. A flash of white ahead of him. He dropped to one knee and aimed his rifle, the cool metal fitting comfortably into his shoulder. They were almost certainly Stormtroopers, but he couldn't take any risks.

"Identify yourselves!" he called to them, pointing his blaster at the white. There were several, tense seconds as he waited for a response, but nothing happened. "This is the Imperial Army, identify yourselves!"

There was no movement, no sound, no reaction whatsoever. If it was someone trying to hide, they were no exotic flower, that was for sure.

He waited a little longer, then moved forward, never raising himself to a standing position, shuffling to the white, which he was now sure was armour. Rain continued to spatter around him, drops landing on his helmet quietly as his sense of unease grew.

He gently reached forward and parted a bush using his gun and left hand, revealing the bloodied body of a Stormtrooper leaning against a tree.

Ah, shit, was his first thought, a curse which was tripled when he saw the other three corpses scattered around their rendezvous. One lay at the base of the bush, scorched hole in the back his armour from a blaster, another spread-eagle at the edge of the clearing, another blackened hole in his armour, albeit in the front this time. And a third, missing his helmet from what the scout could see, just off into the trees.

The scout stepped into the miniature clearing, bending over by the body of the nearest ally, the one by the bush, to check his ID. He focused his helmet's scanner on the small code embedded in the back of every Imperial's armour, located just behind the neck, and it clicked up with service number, name, rank and division.

"TAC-COM One," the scout clicked his comm on again, raising himself up to a stand and watching the jungle around him for any possible ambush.

"Go ahead Ghost," the friendly female voice answered straight away.

"I report four friendly KIAs, Ramirez's team."

There was a pause, then she came back, sounding deflated. "Copy Ghost. I'll pass this up the chain of command and get some reinforcements out ASAP."

"Much appreciated," he clicked off his comm again, moving onwards to the next corpse, the one against the tree.

He got onto one knee and set his rifle beside him so he could properly grasp the helmet, which he did so, slowly sliding it off the body.

It was Ramirez himself. A solid, dependable guy, great fun to be around when on leave or on duty, eyes constantly flashing with jokes and pranks.

Now, they stared out at him blankly, the life drained away into the sodden earth.

In a few months, he would've been a father of twin girls.

The scout forced the thought from his mind, instead checking over the body, which, upon closer inspection, was badly mangled. There were several obvious broken bones, and at least one area where a large blood vessel had been ruptured in one of his arms, staining the bodysuit material a darker black.

He checked the next one as well, noting the way he'd landed, almost like he'd been pushed. He had a charred hole in his white armour as well, where the blasters had found their mark and ended his life.

The Imperial turned, boots digging into the mossy ground and propelling himself forward. Slowly, then getting faster and faster as his eyes widened in shock under the white helmet.

The 4th Body lacked a head, a cut neatly crossing the entirety of his neck. The gruesome remains were badly burned, and the scout didn't pull away at the stench, which was only now wafting its way into his mask. He ignored it's sting, feeling a sudden, near physical pressure on him.

Their mission had gotten much more dangerous.

He raised his arm, snapping open his commlink and speaking as soon as connection was established.

"Command, Ghost reporting signs of a Jedi in the area," he spoke quickly, cutting off his handler before she could speak.

There was silence, but the slight crackle from his wrist indicated that the link was still open.

Finally, the voice came back. "Command copies Ghost," she sounded flustered now, no doubt sending the alert up to the higher echelons as she spoke. "Uhh…maintain current battle plan, but focus on the Jedi. Mark the location of our casualties and make your way to the secondary rendezvous at pace."

It was her turn to close the connection, and the sniper began running, arm dropping to his gun again and getting a better grip, holding it close so it didn't get caught on anything.

The rain didn't matter now. Neither did concealment, and he vaulted over a log, not even reacting to the deafening crack it made. The secondary rendezvous was where all the fireteams would meet up and co-ordinate the main assault, and he had to warn them about the Jedi, if they hadn't been killed already.

He slid under an overhang, spraying mud in his wake, practically bouncing off the rocks as he increased his speed to the maximum. The cliff edge materialised to one side of him, a sudden, sheer drop down into more jungle. The scout altered his course slightly, running parallel to the cliff, always keeping it within sight.

There was a flash of white ahead, and he slid to a stop, yanking his blaster from its holster and holding it out. He pointed at the Stormtrooper, then lowered the gun, sliding it back as he walked up.

"Ghost?" the Imperial half-asked, half-stated as the Scout approached, turning and falling in next to him as he walked on.

"Yes," he replied, making a beeline for the Sargent, leaning against a tree as he chatted with one of the local militia.

The Sargent noticed his arrival and pushed off from the wall so he was standing.

"Glad you could make it," his rank-equivalent greeted, offering a salute, which was returned. "We've located the rebel camp, just a few minutes away. We also located a suitable sniping spot for you, overlooking the camp."

He'd be the judge of that, but the Scout nodded a thanks.

He hesitated, thinking the best way of breaking the news, then decided just to say it.

"There is a Jedi here," he started, watching the Stormtrooper freeze in surprise. "They killed Ramirez and his team."

The Sargent stood for a second, then huffed. "We'd best get a move on then. Don't want them discovering our presence yet. How are we going to do this?"

"Just like the simulations," the Scout rolled the shoulder with his rifle on, and they parted with a nod, the sniper following the new route uploaded to his HUD and the Sargent gathering his men and sorting them into groups, 2 stormtroopers to five militia to ensure an even spread of experience and numbers.

Just like the simulations meant that they'd all start firing when the Sniper did, to catch the rebels by surprise and to prevent them from getting a bead on the sniper. It was a well-rehearsed tactic, practiced countless times in the training sims at the base, one of the only things they could do to pass the time outside of normal patrols and dealing with crime reports, of which there were very few.

He saw the rise in the ground ahead, and nodded to himself in satisfaction.

The Sargent had chosen well; with a vertical front facing the rebels and an easy slope backwards, it provided an ideal firing position, especially with all of the cover the ferns and shrubs provided, all in the shade of a massive tree that grew out of the side of the mound.

He paused at the bottom of the hill, eyes darting between two spindly trees that were evenly spaced, one on either side of the base of the slope.

As a sniper, it was always imperative that you guarded your back as best as you could, and so the sniper untied the small grappling hook that came as part of his belt, wrapping it around the bases of the two small trees at foot-height, invisible amongst the foliage and darkness provided by the tree and the cloud.

He stepped over it and climbed to the top, lowering himself to one knee, then onto his chest as he crawled forward, stopping amidst the bushes.

It was quite the makeshift camp, with lean-tos and small tents constructed out of various materials, with a couple of bright blue or green civilian models scattered through the camp. A communal fireplace lay opposite the tents, a spit over the top and several logs and chairs, again civilian models, sat around it. The only proper structure was the ramshackle hut, inside of which he could see several small machines whirr and blink, connected to the solar panels and lone antenna on the roof.

There were two figures in the middle of the camp, chatting away. One was a male, the other a female, and they stood talking while others lounged around, a couple looking out over the jungle with a sloppiness that no Imperial unit would tolerate. Even as he watched, one of them turned around to chat to someone lying in a lean-to, disregarding the threats that could be out in the jungle.

The Scout set his zoom on the macrobinoculars, focusing on the girl first, as she was looking roughly in his direction, showing her face.

Shoulder-length brown hair was the first thing he saw, then the smiling face revealing polished white teeth and green eyes as he adjusted the zoom backwards to show her face fully.

She looked young. Innocent. Far too clean for the dirty war they were fighting.

Guilt stabbed at him, a poking to his soul, and, for far too long, he felt regret for what he was about to do, watching her chat with her friend in the middle of the camp like any pair of teenagers would.

He summoned the image of the Imperials lying dead in the clearing, never to see their families again, and his resolved hardened. Maybe not as much as he would've liked, but killing youngsters would never sit well with him anyway.

He began to check his rifle, starting by examining the muzzle brake.

Clear.

Extend the tripods, bury them in the ground to make sure that they're stable.

Check.

Reach over and open the firing chamber, pulling back the spring-shut blast-cap.

Clean.

Let the firing chamber snap shut and take out the magazine. Count the ammo.

Six rounds, completely charged.

Slide back in. Put butt in shoulder and look through scope. Focus scope to their range.

He reached up to the side of the scope and grabbed a small dial, turning it slowly.

Click

Click

Click

Click

The scope now showed a crystal-clear image of the two teenage Jedi talking, leaning into each other as they whispered something.

He brought the stock up to his cheek, shutting his left eye and aiming down the scope.

Breathe in. Breath out. Breath in. Hold.

The crosshair centred on the girl's heart, following her as she leaned back in laughter, then forward to slap her leg.

The finger pulled back slowly, slowly, gently squeezing the trigger, pushing against the resistance that told him not to take the shot.

CRACK!

The red laser burned a hole into her chest, and she flew back, smoking from where her heart should've been.

There was an agonised scream from the male Jedi, her friend, the kind one would make when their soul is torn out of them.

There was a flash of blue and the next shot he fired, a split second after the first, was sent flying into the mud, sizzling as the water heated and evaporated. The Jedi was howling in anger, lightsaber unslung as he charged towards the Scout, deflecting all the shots the Imperials sent his way.

None of them were sent back to their origin point, but that wasn't the Jedi's goal. It was to exact vengeance on the sniper who'd killed the girl, and nothing was going to distract him from that

He cycled through his magazine, then left the sniper where it was, instead taking out the pistol and smoke grenade, running away from the edge. The Imperial slid down the slope, twisting the pin on the grenade, setting it to a ten-second fuse and dropping it behind him as he continued running.

He stopped beyond the twin trees, turning to face the direction of the fighting, pistol drawn, mentally counting down the seconds for the Jedi to arrive, tuning-out the background shooting as he waited.

Sure enough, the Jedi arrived on time, yelling a war cry as he charged down onto the smoke grenade.

As though it was planned, the grenade popped directly beneath him, causing the boy to stumble into the wire and trip, planting his face into the dirt. The lightsaber spun out of his grip, to bury itself in the ground somewhere.

"Surrender," the scout demanded, pointing the blaster at the toppled Jedi, who tried to hurl an insult as he lifted himself up from the ground.

Instead, the Padawan rushed towards him, sending a weak force blast towards the Imperial that merely knocked the blaster out of his hands. The instant that he tried to swing a punch, the Scout dodged to one side and kicked him in the back of the knee, again causing him to fall down, albeit on one knee this time. The counter uppercut was cut and instead twisted out of the way, slamming him straight into the extended elbow, the armour over the joint ramming into the bridge of his nose and shattering it.

He screamed, rolling to one side and fumbling around for a millisecond until his hand closed around the blaster. He leaped up and pointed it at the Scout trooper, ready to fire…

The Imperial batted the gun aside with his left fist, jabbing his flat, straight right hand into the boy's neck, snapping the cartilage around the trachea and rupturing one of the arteries leading to the brain.

The boy dropped like a stone, and the Scout reached down, prizing his blaster from the hand and, noticing the shooting in the camp had stopped, holstered it. He stepped over the wire he'd tied, moving to the second tree and untying his grappling hook, trying it around his waist so he could walk over to get the lightsaber.

It took a brief search to find it, the grey cylinder lost amongst the bushes, but eventually it was clipped onto his belt and he could walk back to the camp.

There were several rebels being shoved into the centre, where another two already kneeled, hands tied behind their backs. They were being watched over by 4 Stormtroopers and the Sargent while the others searched the camp, seizing weapons and other items, ranging from classified documents in the shack to ration packs and the still-prized sleeping bags.

"Did you get him?" the Sargent asked as the Scout approached, getting a nod in return.

"I had to kill him," the scout thumbed the bushes behind him, stopping in front of the prisoners and holding out the lightsaber.

"YOU BASTARD!" one of the rebels shouted furiously from where he sat, trying to stand and being forced to sit back down by a firm hand from one of the guards. "They had everything to live for! You killed them in their primes of their lives!"

"Did it ever cross your mind that maybe those guys you killed back there were also in the primes of their lives?" the Scout snapped at the rebel, furiously gesturing towards the hill and beyond, where the squad had been killed. "Did you stop to wonder if one of them might've been an expecting a son soon, and between them there are now five children without fathers?"

The rebel was taken aback, completely shocked by both the fury in the Scout's voice and the revelation that maybe the Stormtroopers they'd killed were human too, with families, wives and children now without husbands and dads.

"So, stop it with your self-righteous bullshit!" the Imperial stared into the eyes of the cowering boy, and did so for several more seconds before pulling back with a sigh, turning away from the prisoners and gazing out of the camp.

His eyes were unwillingly dragged to the body of the girl he killed, her pretty features still grotesquely twisted in the laugh she'd been having before she died. It was a cruel mockery of life, and he tore his eyes away to listen to the gunships as they approached, appearing over the treetops in the distance, black dots against a cloudy sky.

"How many did we lose Sargent?" he asked as he watched the dropships grow in his vision, water splashing onto his visor and leaving drops where the sky became blurred, the water refracting the light in a different way to the air.

"None," so it was a 'flawless victory' then. "They lost thirteen, fifteen including the Jedi."

However much they praised it, lauded it as the 'next great adventure' or a 'once in a lifetime experience', neither the rebels nor the Empire prepared them for what real combat was like. The long hours of tedious movement and inaction, the overwhelming intensity of combat.

The pain of seeing a friend killed.

That was the reality of war.

* * *

.

* * *

Notes:

Please let me know what you think. I can't improve if you don't tell me what I've done wrong :)  
It's not one of my best, but I hope it's decent.


	2. The Mud of Mimban

Jai slipped in the mud, sliding onto his rear into the waterlogged bottom of the crater, and, temporarily safe and obscured from sight, could finally regain his focus on the battle.

Humanoid shadows danced in the fog and mist, black clouds enveloping the combatants, obscuring friend and foe alike in the inky air. Occasionally, one of the figures would jerk and cease its motions as a bolt slammed into it, tumbling to the ground and vanishing amongst the craters and puddles that made the surface of Mimban.

Ahead, a pair of mechanical legs stomped out of the gloom, silently splashing through craters and slippery shallow trenches. The box-like head of the beast was faintly visible, consumed by the swirling black cloud of burning vehicle and flesh alike. Out of the front protruded a long snout, the grey barrel marred by mud and battle-damage that spelt death to anything in front of it.

The head swung to the side to face the rebels, his friends, as Mudtroopers exchanged fire with the survivors of his battalion.

Jai struggled to his feet, blaster in-hand as he awkwardly stood up, ignoring the protests of his bruised and battered body, muscles screaming at him to drop the gun he now had affixed over an Imperial.

The gun boomed, the flash briefly lighting up the dark day as the shell whizzed towards its target, exploding mere seconds after it had left the barrel. Jai didn't hear the shot as much as he felt it, the concussive wave rippling through his nigh-unarmoured body even from where he was standing, far from the source of the wave.

Jai staggered back, eyes flickering along the ground for anything he could use.

Bodies. Bodies everywhere.

Bodies lining the craters, bodies making the ridges between them, whole bodies, parts of bodies, individual limbs and digits. All partially submerged in the mud and muck, faceless visors and contorted faces alike making a mockery of life.

He needed to take out that walker… the last Imperial artillery piece in this sector…

But there was nothing there. Everything was submerged under a sea of mud, a hellish mixture of waterlogged soil, oil, and blood turning it a sickening, gloopy morass that concealed everything from him.

Blaster fire erupted behind him, blue and red bolts flashing past him into the Mud troopers and Imperial Army soldiers who were finishing off the other group, and a pair of rockets whizzed by, one tumbling off course into the ground in front of him.

Jai instinctively ducked, the sudden shift in weight combined with the explosion sending him flying into the opposite flank of the crater, where he tumbled and slid into the puddle at the bottom.

The world spun into focus, head hammering painfully as he tried to focus. Blood dripped down from his forehead, dribbling a bloody contribution to the muddy plains of Mimban.

Beams of blue and red flashed overhead, so close he could reach out and touch them if he so wished, burning bright against the dark clouds and impermeable mist that consumed the battlefield.

He couldn't hear the twang of the blasters, nor the dull boom of the Imperial walker as it fired again, the rumble of the shot through the ground being the only indication as to its status. The plaintive screams of dying men had been lost too, lost long ago when his hearing had been snatched from him.

He couldn't see outside his crater, dull grey and mottled black clouds made up his view skyward, occasionally punctuated by flashes of colour as bolts of death flew overhead.

He couldn't smell anything either. His sense of smell had long been overwhelmed by the stench of death, nostrils scorched by sulphur and cordite.

All he was left with was touch.

He could feel the pervasive slime of the mud, clinging to the fabric of his clothes and the surface of his body.

He could feel the tremors in the ground as the heavy walker stomped along, advancing towards his remaining allies.

He could feel the gentle patter of rain on his face, washing away the days of mud, sweat, and blood caked onto his skin.

He was alive.

Slowly, he began to realise that the fire was abating. Fewer bolts were flying overhead, and less frequently. A rocket had passed overhead a minute ago, maybe two? And the walker had stopped thumping around.

Jai looked down, tearing his gaze from the uncaring sky and back down into his crater.

Like a miracle from some unknown deity, there lay a rocket launcher, loaded and sitting out of the mud on the body of a rebel, detached hand still clasping the handle.

He knew that a true hero of the Mimbanian Resistance would grab that rocket, stand up, and blast the walker, or failing that, whatever remaining Imperials stood on the battlefield with it. Then, he would be gunned down by the remaining Imperials, should any remain.

He was no hero.

The ground trembled again, the rhythmic thudding indicating something was moving, and Jai raised his head to look.

Like an omen of death, the AT-DT plodded into view, now missing a corner of the protective panel and greatly blackened, but otherwise still functional. It's drivers and the gun breech were clearly visible to him as it aimed to the side, searching for more targets.

Once more, his eyes flickered to the rocket launcher

He would stand, maybe he would manage fire the rocket before he was cut down by the remaining Imperials.

No, he was no hero.

Jai dropped his head back and stared at the swirling skies.

The Imperial walker continued to march, metal feet squashing the ground uncaringly, ignoring the corpses that made up the muddy hills. He could see it at the bottom of his vision, just the top, tracing its way along until it vanished out of sight.

The others were all dead or dying, his comrades cut down by the Imperials as they attempted to advance on the artillery, or blown to tiny pieces by the walkers. He was all that was left.

The Imperials still held the sector. Their lives had been wasted, attacking with suicidal fervour on a well-defended position.

A head emerged in the corner of his vision, soulless black eyes of the mudtrooper's helmet scanning the battlefield, looking for anybody who might've somehow survived.

Jai tilted his head to watch the trooper as he made his way along, picking his way over the bodies and clambering over a ruined sheet of durasteel as he followed the walker.

More Mudtroopers came into view as he looked, checking bodies of comrades, occasionally raising their blaster and executing a surviving rebel.

Another Imperial emerged into view, much closer than the others, and following the walker that'd passed by him a mere minute ago.

Unlike the others though, he was not a Mudtrooper. No mask hid the tight face, nor the horrified eyes as they traced over the broken bodies and discarded limbs.

The man stumbled and slid his way to the edge of Jai's crater, searching for living rebels, as he'd been ordered to.

The Imperial's eyes roamed the shellhole, looking over the shattered corpses of friend and foe alike, roaming up Jai's body.

The man's gaze found his.

Frightened eyes met frightened eyes, two enemies facing each other on the battlefield. One was armed and intact, backed by the Empire and with all the power. The other was alone and afraid, with no allies and completely helpless.

Jai waited for the man to shift and turn, to raise his blaster and fire. The thin, muddy uniform would do little to protect him from the Imperial's shot.

Instead, he looked away and began walking, picking his way over the bodies and wreckage.

Jai didn't know quite what to think. There was no quarter given on Mimban. Nobody spared the enemy unless they had to.

That was the way it'd always been.

He knew this was important, but he couldn't quite put his finger on how. The world seemed… lighter. Paler, and white, somehow more muted.

His head didn't hurt anymore either. He couldn't even the feel the blood as it ebbed out of his head and mixed into the mud.

Silently, the rebel turned his head skyward.

Skyward to the murky heavens of Mimban.

Author's Note:

Slightly different from the first story ("Reality of War"), this one is from a Mimbanian rebel's perspective (if you hadn't guessed, haha), with a bit less focus on the detail on weapons and vehicles and more on the situation. I was kind of inspired by the brief segment from Solo: A Star Wars Story, which featured the war on Mimban, but from the rebel's perspective, as best as I can manage it

If you want some more detail, the rebels on Mimban were the Mimbanese Liberation Army, fighting the 224th Imperial Armoured Division, who (ironically) trained them to fight the separatist invasion during the Clone Wars. They were made up of a number of species from what I can tell, not just native Mimbanese.

I will confess that this isn't my greatest piece of work ever, and that I'm not a great writer by any mark, but I hope you enjoyed nonetheless.


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